Uber decides to pull the plug on its New York taxi service

New York's taxi rules prevent Uber for now, but that may change next year.

Uber Taxi, the smartphone-driven private transportation service, announced Tuesday that it would be halting its month-long partnership with existing New York yellow cab drivers. Uber’s black car and UberX services remain unaffected. But the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission has indicated that it may be open to modifying existing rules so that Uber and other startups can provide a more tech-friendly way to hail cabs.

In September, the San Francisco-based startup, which had previously built up a fleet of black cars that could be hailed and paid for via an app, began allowing cab drivers to receive special bookings in the Big Apple through modified iPhones supplied by Uber. The day after Uber Taxi launched, New York authorities told cab drivers that they could be fined or lose their licenses for joining the service.

"Unfortunately, as many of you have noticed, there haven’t been enough available taxis," wrote Travis Kalanick, Uber’s CEO, on the company’s blog, adding that 160 cabbies participated in the program, with a single-day high of $168 in additional fares for one driver.

"Demand far out-stripped supply, making you feel pretty lucky when you got a yellow from your iPhone," he wrote. "We did the best we could to get more yellows on the road but New York’s TLC (Taxi and Limousine Commission) put up obstacles and roadblocks in order to squash the effort around e-hail, which they privately have said is legal under the rules. We’ll bite our tongues and keep our frustration here to ourselves."

According to a statement from TLC Commissioner David Yassky, existing "exclusive contracts" are the reason that Uber can’t use cabs in the city.

Those contracts are part of the Taxicab Passengers Enhancement Project (TPEP), which provides various hardware including GPS data collection, credit card processing and two-way messaging with drivers. Under the TPEP system, Creative Mobile Technologies and VeriFone have an exclusive contract to provide such infrastructure and services to the TLC.

But Yassky added that these contracts are set to expire in February 2013 and will help the agency move "towards rule changes that will open the market to app developers and other innovators."

"We are committed to making it as easy as possible to get a safe, legal ride in a New York City taxi, and are excited to see how emerging technology can improve that process," he noted. "Our taxis have always been on the cutting edge of technological innovation, from GPS systems to credit card readers."

I'm sorry to see Uber getting blocked like this. That said, I started using them because I was fed up with cab quality (in Boston, not NYC), so I don't much see the appeal of the taxi service. I'll pay a few dollars extra for a town car, thanks.

A company is shut down by the Obummer/Bloomberg nanny state. No one cares.

Quote:

In March 2004, the TLC's Board of Commissioners mandated that specific technology based service improvements be implemented in all medallion taxicabs. T-PEP focuses on four areas: automated collection and submission of trip data, the installation of a passenger information monitor (including a passenger information map), incorporating electronic message transmission capability into the taxicab, and finally, the addition of equipment to enable the acceptance of credit/debitcards.

The taxi lobby and Bloomberg certainly want to protect the customer from rogue taxis. Dangerous third party cab companies simply can't be allowed, even if they comply fully with the law. Of course all this has nothing to do with keeping the value of taxi medalians artificially high or protecting a strong lobby.

A company is shut down by the Obummer/Bloomberg nanny state. No one cares.

Quote:

In March 2004, the TLC's Board of Commissioners mandated that specific technology based service improvements be implemented in all medallion taxicabs. T-PEP focuses on four areas: automated collection and submission of trip data, the installation of a passenger information monitor (including a passenger information map), incorporating electronic message transmission capability into the taxicab, and finally, the addition of equipment to enable the acceptance of credit/debitcards.

His post is stupid and trollish, but by all accounts Bloomberg is an independent politically and left leaning ideologically.

I don't think a Republican would try banning soda sizes. That's strictly Democrat territory. They have no time to regulate your health choices when they're trying to control whats going on in your bedroom.

This sounded reasonable to me--they had some sort of a deal in place because it solved the cash problem (a huge problem for everybody involved). Now that this disruptive new technology exists, it probably makes the existing partnership partially obsolete--I liked that they're up front with the contract's upcoming end and that they're open to working with this once the exclusivity deal is up.

Shouldn't have exclusive deals perhaps, but as long as they don't do it in the future (there appear to be vigorously competing solutions in the offering).

Anything that ties e-payment with logging customers and drivers can increase safety, though I'm sure a few will still want to do untraceable cab rides (hail the cab and pay with cash).

The taxi lobby and Bloomberg certainly want to protect the customer from rogue taxis. Dangerous third party cab companies simply can't be allowed, even if they comply fully with the law. Of course all this has nothing to do with keeping the value of taxi medalians artificially high or protecting a strong lobby.

Most importantly, this service doesn't involve a third-party cab company; it's using existing taxis.

Even in the article the TLC is quoted as being sympathetic. The reason this is being shut down is due to clauses in existing contracts that are also mentioned as coming to an end.

As it turns out, contracts aren't void just because people want to use fancy new technology; all parties to a contract need to agree to end it, or wait until the contract ends on its own.

Bloomberg talks up tech, but then stuff like this goes down. If the city of New York wants to encourage a booming tech scene ala Silicon Valley, they really need to get with the picture. NYC has a definite cultural and bureaucratic inertia that makes rapid change... difficult?